"You ain't tired, are you--Myra?"

"No--Simon"--she danced to her feet and tossed the hair back from her
face--"I ain't tired."

They walked down the beach toward the bathhouse, humming softly to
themselves.

"I'll be out in ten minutes," she said, pausing at the door of her
locker.

"Me too," he said.

When they met again they were regroomed and full of verve. She was as
cool as a rose. They laughed at their crinkly finger-tips--wrinkled by
the water like parchment; and his neck, where it rose above the soft
high collar, was branded by the sun a flaming red.

"Gee!" she cried. "Ain't you sunburnt!"

"I always tan red," he said.

"And me, I always tan tan."

They exchanged these pithy and inspired bits of autobiography in warm,
intimate tones. At their hotel steps she sighed with a delicious
weariness.

"I wish I could do everything for you, little one--even walk up-stairs."

"I ain't tired, Simon; only--only--Oh, I don't know."

"Little one," he said, softly.

In the lobby Miss Bella Blondheim leaned an elbow on the clerk's desk
and talked to a stout young man with a gold-mounted elk's tooth on his
watch-fob, and black hair that curled close to his head.

They made a group of four for a moment, Miss Blondheim regarding the
arrivals with bright, triumphant eyes.

"My friend, Mr. Louis Epstein," she said.

The men shook hands.

"Related to the Epstein & Son Millinery Company, Broadway and Spring?"

"Thertainly am. I happen to be the thon mythelf."

"Was you in the surf this mornin', Bella? It was grand!"

"No, Myra," replied her friend. "Mr. Epstein and me took a trip to Ocean
View."

"You missed the water this mornin'. It was fine and dandy!" volunteered
Mr. Arnheim.

"Me and Mr. Epstein are goin' this afternoon--ain't we?"

"We thertainly are," agreed Mr. Epstein, regarding Miss Blondheim with
small, admiring eyes.

Miss Sternberger edged away. "Pleased to have met you, Mr. Epstein."

Mr. Arnheim edged with her and they moved on their way toward the
dining-room.

Mrs. Blondheim from her point of vantage--the wicker rocker--leaned
toward her sister-in-law.

"Look, Hanna! that's Louie Epstein, of the Epstein & Son Millinery
Company, with Bella. He's a grand boy. I meet his mother at Doctor
Bergenthal's lecture every Saturday morning. Epstein & Son have got a
grand business, and Bella could do a whole lot worse."

"Well, I wish her luck," said Mrs. Blondheim's sister-in-law.

"I